


Heaven and Earth

by Emony



Series: USA Today [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Psych
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-01
Updated: 2011-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:36:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emony/pseuds/Emony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn Spencer is about to have his mind blown. A Wishlist fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heaven and Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [argentum_ls (LadySilver)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/gifts).



Title: Heaven and Earth  
Author: Emony  
Summary: Shawn Spencer is about to have his mind blown.  
Prompt/Prompter: - _Buffy/Psych, Giles+Shawn, Giles isn't fooled and thinks Shawn needs to learn that there's more to the world than simple observation and logic can deduce._  
Rating: Teen  
Warnings:None that I am aware of.  
Disclaimer:I don't own Buffy or Psych - that's Whedon and the USA Network.

Notes: This picks up from my Psych drabble [here](http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-6620-37/Emony+Snapshots.htm) and can be seen as a part of my [USA Today 'verse](http://www.tthfanfic.org/Series-1969) but can be read as a stand alone.

***

 _1990_

“Shawn Spencer get your ass down here right now!” shouts his dad from the kitchen.

Shawn chooses to believe he hasn’t heard him and carries on calculating how easy it would be to shimmy down the drainpipe outside his room; it’s almost weird he hasn’t tried that one before.

“Shawn!” the volume has gone up a notch and he can hear footsteps on the stairs, this whole detective thing has been a real pain. He should probably go downstairs and face his doom.

By the time he leaves his room his dad has made it up the stairs and is standing outside his door.

“Shawn, what’s this?” he asks holding up the broken fishing rod.

“Your fishing rod,” he answers with a nod.

“I can see that Shawn,” his dad says with a glare, “what I meant was, would you like to explain to me what happened to it?”

“Uh, looks like it got broke,” he says with a shrug, just to see how far he can push it.

“Shawn,” he almost growls, if any human can actually growl without sounding stupid it’s his dad.

“Gus did it!” he breaks, but anyone would forgive him for that, his dad has broken bigger bad guys than him, not that he’s a bad guy.

“We both know that’s not true Shawn, now how about giving me the actual truth,” it’s then that Shawn sees Gus hiding around the corner looking half guilty, half amused.

***

 _Now_

The gentleman in front of him is definitely British, right down to the tweed jacket and well polished glasses; but given the last time he thought that someone was British the girl disappeared never to be seen again – which was a shame given those hot pants – he stops his automatic reaction of responding to the man’s greeting in a British accent.

“Shawn Spencer, Psychic Detective,” he says, stepping out from behind Gus’s desk where he had most certainly not been super-gluing the vowels on his keyboard.

“Rupert Giles,” the man says, “Vice President of NSC.”

There’s a moment of a silence where for once Shawn doesn’t quite know how to answer; he’s heard of NSC; don’t tell Lassie though, he might change his passwords again. A beat and then the man, Mr Giles smirks,

“Well, at least one of those statements is true, isn’t it, Mr Spencer?” he takes a seat under the window, “and we both know which one.”

“Wuh? Uh, I’m sorry?” Is all Shawn can manage as his brain goes full pelt trying to figure out what this guys knows, if anything. It’s not like they don’t get at least one guy a week trying to prove him wrong – it’s not usually the VP of a really shady international corporation though.

“Really, Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles says as he takes his glasses off to pinch the bridge of his nose, a well rehearsed move.

He goes with his best defence mechanism in the end – humour, “you’re not the VP of NSC? NSC? What’s that? No Sorry Children, Never Salt Cherries, Nice Shih Tzu’s Carry, although that would make it NSTC...”

He trails off at the older man’s glare. Taking a closer look he spots that the tweed jacket is old, but clearly doesn’t have recent wear and tear and while the move with the glasses is well rehearsed he clearly doesn’t wear them anymore; there are no marks on the side of his nose from the little bumper things he can’t remember the name of.

He raises his hand to his temple and starts, “No, sorry, I think it’s you who isn’t telling the truth. You may have dressed up in the tweed and glasses, but that’s not you, hasn’t been for quite some time has it Mr Giles?”

Mr Giles’ answering grin is quite feral, “Mr Spencer, even a teenager could deduce such a thing. Yes the jacket is mine, but I haven’t worn it in some time; which is clear from the lack of recent wear and tear. As for the glasses, anyone with half decent eyesight would spot that I haven’t any impressions from the nose pads as a recent long term wearer of glasses would.”

At this point he stands, smoothing out his jacket and putting his glasses back on, “it has been decided that you need to learn that there's more to the world than simple observation and logic can deduce.”

“It’s been decided, by who?” actual fear is creeping in now; this guy looks like he could make more criminals confess than Lassie and Henry put together, not that he’s a criminal. He sneaks his hand in to his pocket to dial Jules.

“I wouldn’t do that Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles says looking at the movement, “you will find that there is no signal in the building and the surrounding block. As for the decision, you had a visitor recently, she made the decision.”

He knows who the man is talking about instantly, Buffy Summers, “but she didn’t say more than her name.”

“She didn’t need to,” is all Mr Giles will say as he leads Shawn to his town car; who has a town car in Santa Barbara?

As he’s pushed, gently he has to say, into the back of the car he spots Gus getting out of the Blueberry on the other side of the road.

***

“Shawn’s been kidnapped!” Guster shouts the second he steps into the precinct, utterly breaking any concentration Carlton might have had and this requisition form really was important, certainly more than Spencer’s stunt of the week.

“Mr Guster,” he says gathering himself up to stand menacingly over the man, “could you perhaps not shout in the precinct? Some of us are trying to complete very important police work.”

“Carlton!” O’Hara shouts from her spot behind Guster, “Gus,” she says all breathy and female, “what happened to Shawn?”

“He was pushed into a town car outside the Psych office,” Guster answers.

“Pushed, Mr Guster?” Carlton asks, “Or was he just given a helping hand?”

“Carlton!” O’Hara again.

“Well,” Guster demurs, “it was gentle sort of push from a British guy.”

“And how do you know the ‘suspect’ was British, Mr Guster? Did Spencer perhaps tell you to say that when he came up with his latest scheme?” he takes a moment to lean back against his desk in a proper detective pose.

“He was wearing a tweed jacket. In Santa Barbara,” is if that was all the evidence needed to determine nationality.

“Mr Guster,” ah, at last, the Chief to provide the voice of reason, Henry behind her to bolster that – as long as he doesn’t get all emotional over his son being ‘kidnapped’, “what is the reason for all this noise, and why are you here without Mr Spencer, the other Mr Spencer.”

“That’s why I’m here Chief Vick,” Guster says, trying to turn on his so-called puppy eyes, “its Shawn, he’s been kidnapped by a British man with a town car.”

“Again, Guster, how do yo-” Carlton attempts to bring some sense of order back to his precinct before the Chief holds up her hand.

“Mr Guster, can you give us anything more than that?” she asks, looking worried, as does Henry – Carlton holds in a sigh.

“Yes,” Guster answers holding out his phone, “there’s a photo here – Shawn looks scared and I caught the plates too.”

Any chance Carlton had of finishing his requisition and writing some reports is now gone as the Chief decides she needs to mobilise the troops for Spencer’s latest stunt. It’s an hour before he looks at the photo from Guster as O’Hara covers his computer screen with the offending image.

Rupert Giles, Vice President and public face of the NSC; only the shadiest good guys on the planet; he had attended one of the man’s seminars a year previously – held only for the best in law enforcement – and had been applying for a place in their organisation ever since. He even had the man’s business card somewhere.

As he dug out the card and was about to dial, his phone rang, “Detective Carlton Lassiter.”

“Detective Lassiter,” a regal sounding British voice, obviously Mr Giles, “I assume that you are by now investigating Mr Spencer’s... disappearance?”

“Yes, sir, we are investigating the ‘disappearance’ of Spencer,” he says in a loud voice and then hits the loud speaker on his phone as the precinct comes to a stop.

“Detectives, Chief, Mr Spencer; Shawn is in safe hands and will be returned intact shortly,” this answer provokes shocked looks in the precinct; this, this right here is why Carlton wants to work for them.

“Who is this?”Vick asks.

Mr Giles introduces himself and then goes on to explain, “Mr Spencer is currently receiving some of our more shall we say, specialised, training.”

Great, more reasons to be jealous of the little twerp. Why must he get everything?

“And this had to be done without giving the SBPD prior notice?” the Chief asks, “As a consultant to the force Mr Spencer was clearly going to be looked for.”

“Unfortunately this is the only way this particular training works, Chief Vick, with no prior knowledge for the participant and with Mr Spencer’s _unique_ talents we were unable to inform the relevant parties until training was underway. As I said previously, Mr Spencer will be returned, intact, shortly,” and he ended the call.

There was a flurry of noise until the Chief called for silence, “I want to know everything there is to know on Mr Giles’ organisation, and I want it now.”

Carlton silently opened his desk drawer, pulled out a thin file and handed it to her.

***

Although Shawn can’t see out of the windows of the very posh town car he finds himself in he still knows where they are heading for, he’d once spent a quiet week having Gus driving him various escape routes from Santa Barbara whilst blindfolded, him, not Gus, “why the airport?”

“It is what is expected, therefore no one expects it, Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles answers from beside him, he’s yet to see the driver.

At least, unless there’s a change in a larger city, there’s no leaving the US. That’s his hope, right up until the car takes a route towards the area private planes take off from. The car stops and the driver, a woman, holds open Mr Giles’ door, “everything is ready, sir.”

Mr Giles nods and exits the car, suddenly the door on Shawn’s side of the car opens, and a brunette woman helps him out of the car.

“I wouldn’t run, Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles tells him from over the top of the car, “Faith enjoys it a little too much when they run.”

He looks at Faith, he assumes the brunette is who Mr Giles is talking about, and tries very hard not to shudder at the look on her face; it reminds him of every ex-con he’s ever seen a little too much. No matter how much Mr Giles with his tweed and glasses projects calm this woman, this Faith – doesn’t.

They usher him into a little portacabin off the side of a small runway near the back of the land owned by the airport. The runway has a small plane on it with its motors running. The driver of the town car heads to it and gets in closing the door behind her. They watch the plane take off through the grimy windows of the cabin.

“The authorities will assume you are on that plane, Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles tells him whilst Faith stands looking plain menacing in the background.

“Where will I be?” he asks.

Mr Giles shakes his head, and takes out a mobile phone, “I just have a quick call to make, and then we will be off. I wouldn’t make any noise, Mr Spencer.”

So, Shawn sits and listens as he holds a conversation with Lassie and the Chief. Training? This is training? Somehow it doesn’t quite feel like that. As the conversation is ended by Mr Giles the man turns to Faith and asks if she’s ready.

At her nod the world goes black.

***

Shawn wakes up to one hell of a headache. He’s sitting in a high-backed chair with a padded leather seat; Mr Giles is sitting behind a large, old looking desk writing in a journal. On the stone wall behind him is a large photo on canvas. It seems a rather innocuous shot of a group of friends and their mentor in front of a yellow school bus.

Until you notice the blood, scrapes and eye patch, the crater behind, the tired looks behind the grins, Sunnydale written on the side of the bus. There’s Mr Giles, and Faith, but there’s also the woman who supposedly started this; Buffy Summers.

He gives up on deciphering the image, as fascinating as it is, it won’t get him out of here. Looking at Mr Giles again he notes that he has changed out of the tweed into a leather jacket, with a white t-shirt underneath; he can’t see behind the desk but he suspects the dark grey suit pants have been swapped out for jeans. The glasses have certainly been swapped out for contacts.

His head throbs for a moment and the movement of his hand to the offending lump on the back of his head is spotted by his captor.

“Ah, Mr Spencer,” Mr Giles puts down his pen and closes the journal, “I do apologise, Faith hit you a little too hard, and we didn’t think you would be unconscious quite so long.”

“How long was I out?” he asks, rubbing his head and then flinching at the pressure.

“As I said, a little longer than expected,” Mr Giles gave him a look that said ‘you’ll have to do better than that, kid’, and nodded to Shawn’s left, “you will find a glass of water and an unopened packet of painkillers on the table next to you.”

Mr Giles waits in silence while Shawn inspects the packet, the glass and its contents and finally takes the risk that if the man had wanted to do something to him he would have done it already and takes the tablets.

“As I said earlier, Mr Spencer, it has been decided that you need to learn that there's more to the world than simple observation and logic can deduce,” Mr Giles begins, but Shawn just has to stop him.

“What is this, some sort of backwards Sherlock Holmes?”

Behind Spencer what sounds like another chair like his own creaks and he turns to spot Faith shifting on a slightly more comfortable looking version of his current torture device. Just because they looked like they were in an upscale room didn’t mean they couldn’t go comfy.

“Ah,” he says and decides to shut up.

“Quite,” Mr Giles says as a willowy looking brunette wanders into the room places a photo of what looks like green hear no, see no, speak no evil monkeys, expensive ones at that, on the desk and nods.

“Thank you,” is all Mr Giles says and the woman leaves as she entered, high heels sounding loudly across the stone floor.

“You could be a very useful young man, Mr Spencer, if you tried. I understand the need to have a little fun,” at this he ignores the unladylike snort from Faith and continues, “to fool the authorities but with a little training you could become much more. If you wi-, would like.”

Whilst Shawn is busy trying to decipher the reasoning between the little verbal stumble, Mr Giles stands and begins to pace, “We are going to show you things that will change the very way in which you perceive the world, once you are done we will give you the choice of taking this new way and using it to change the world, or we will remove it and you will remember no more than super gluing your young friend’s keyboard.”

At this the woman from before rushes in, “Sorry Giles, I know you’re busy but we have a priority three situation.”

“Well, Mr Spencer, you will have to excuse us, please feel free to peruse the bookshelf behind you and someone will be along shortly with some sustenance and perhaps a bathroom break, if needed,” at that he and Faith left Shawn alone.

***

Three hours later Shawn has flicked through a few recently released airport reads, eaten some sandwiches delivered by another pretty girl; it seems that Mr Giles surrounds himself with many beautiful women, and according to the picture one scary looking guy in an eye patch; tried and failed to find an escape route, he did that first, and been to the bathroom.

He’s yet to figure out if the priority three situation is real or manufactured. If it’s manufactured they might be looking at his reactions – so he’s decided to go his usual route of pretending everything is fine and his psychic powers will save the day.

The door opens with way less noise than a door of that size and age should make and Faith saunters back in, “up you get Spencer.”

She holds the door open motioning for him to follow her, “don’t stand about and gawk, kid, we haven’t got all day” was all she said when he didn’t show signs of following. It wasn’t his fault; stepping outside of the office he discovered he was on a balcony of some sort that overlooked a room the size of a football pitch. It appeared the whole building was made from the same stone of Mr Giles’ office. Faith takes him quickly through a maze of corridors that, even with his talents, would be difficult to trace back – if that’s what he wanted. They stop outside a pressurised metal door, like the ones you see in sci-fi movies and Faith keys in a 4 digit PIN out of his sight and the door opens with a hiss.

“This is where I leave you,” Faith says and disappears off down the corridor. Shawn gives in and ignores everything that tells him to run now while no-one’s watching and enters the room. It’s brightly lit and the stone walls he’s sure make up the room have been hidden by the kind of panelled walls you would find in a hospital ward. Because that’s what this is – a hospital ward.

Only there’s only one bed filled. Mr Giles is sitting in a chair by the head of the bed, holding the hand of the woman lying there. She looks about his age; he thinks she’d be pretty if she wasn’t so ill looking.

“She’s been in a coma for over two years now,” Mr Giles says, not turning to look at him.

“Who is she?” Shawn asks, because he can’t not.

“Someone I should have kept a better eye one, looked out for more than I did, even if she was no longer in Sunnydale,” Mr Giles says with a sigh. The man finally looks at him, pain clear on his face. He’s not lying about this.

“She is what you pretend to be Mr Spencer, she receives actual visions, more painful than you could comprehend; if she was waving her hand about during a vision it was often because she had little to no control left,” Mr Giles says, “they are far more confusing than you can imagine, sights and sounds not at all easy decipher yet relied upon to save people.”

He wants to say, ‘prove it’, but something is stopping him. Instead he says, “Why would I want to be a real psychic if this is what happens?”

“Why indeed? Mr Spencer, why indeed,” Mr Giles agrees with a twitch of his lips as though he might smile, but doesn’t know how to in the presence of this woman, “that is not what we are offering you, we are offering you further training in the tools you already have and using them for a slightly different purpose.”

“You want me to leave Santa Barbara?” he asks, the first of many questions he wants to ask, bursting out before he can find a better one.

“No, that is not something we want. We don’t remove people from their homes unless that is something they want, or need,” Mr Giles answers with such force that he wants to know the story behind that.

Mr Giles stands, patting the woman’s hand and murmuring, “same time tomorrow, Cordelia,” and they leave.

The older man brings him to a library full of ancient looking books and a mass of computers in one corner. It is empty apart from the woman who had brought Mr Giles the photo earlier; she’s sitting curled up in a window seat with a laptop in her lap and a pile of books on the floor below her. She looks up and grins at them and then calls out, “Cass?”

“Hey Dawn,” comes a voice from behind a bookcase. No, not behind he realises quickly as a girl literally fades into being in the middle of the bookcase, “damnit, I was going for in front.”

The girl, the ghost, not a ghost. It never actually turns out to be a ghost or werewolf or vampire there’s always an explanation.

“No there isn’t,” the girl says, suddenly standing in front of him, “you’ve just never come across the real thing; it’s part of the reason we want you in SB to study that.”

She’s-

“A psychic ghost, yes” the ghost-girl nods, “slightly different type of psychic than Cordelia but yes I was and still am psychic. And, boy, is it odd to know you’re gonna die and no-one, no-one, can stop it.”

“Take a seat Shawn,” Dawn says pointing to the window seat along from her own, “now we’re really going to blow your mind.”

***

They really had. Who knew PowerPoint could be so scary? And then they’d, the girl and the ghost, taken him to see a bunch of teenage girls, slayers, being taught to fight by Faith and then to see a real demon, surprisingly nice guy, if a little obsessed with kittens.

“You ready to make your choice?” Faith asks him once he’s been returned to Mr Giles’ office.

“Yes,” he says, making the choice.

It turns out they’re not going to let him anywhere near anything until they have the time to give him more training, real training. But he knows this is the start of something amazing, even if he is more terrified than he has ever been in his life.

“You’re not alone in that,” Cassie mutters from behind him, “but that’s ok a little fear is better than none.”

“You know the best thing about this?” he asks, bouncing slightly on his toes.

Mr Giles, Giles, just raises a brow.

“It’s so going to bug the hell out of Lassie,” he says and then happily ignores the groans, “so, how am I getting back to the US if I never technically left the country?”

And yeah, he knows he sounds a little Stockholm-y. But there's just something real about this, more real than anything he's done before. Plus, he's already figured out how to get Gus in on this if he needs someone sensible to help him out - just don't tell Gus he thought that.

End


End file.
